Conquer the Flames (Langs Down) (24 page)

“
W
HAT
’
S
the deal with the stockman?” Walker asked Thorne an hour later, after Ian had excused himself to go to the loo. “Are they afraid you’ll go AWOL or something?”

“It’s a sheep station, not the military,” Thorne replied. “If I didn’t go back, I wouldn’t get paid, but nobody would come after me. That’s not the way it works.”

“It was a joke.”

“A bad one,” Thorne retorted. “I like it there, Walker. It’s peaceful and quiet and restful. I haven’t had a lot of that in my life. Sure, it’s hard work, but it feels good to be part of building something instead of always destroying.”

“We did a lot of good all those years,” Walker insisted.

“Yes, we did,” Thorne agreed, “but the good we did for some was always bad for someone else. If we killed a guerrilla and protected a village, the villagers were safe, but the guerrilla was dead and his family lost a son, brother, father, whatever. The good of the many is supposed to outweigh that, except it never fully did. There’s no downside on the station. The sense of building something isn’t accompanied by the knowledge of having destroyed something else.”

“You got a girl on the station?” Walker asked. “You’re talking like a bloke with a soft heart.”

“Not a girl,” Thorne replied as he braced himself for the moment of truth. “I’ve got Ian.”

“Wait, what?” Walker said. “Ian, as in the bloke who just went to the restroom?”

“Yes,” Thorne said distinctly. “You got a problem with that?”

“No,” Walker said immediately, “but… when did this happen?”

“I met him a month ago, when I got sent to Lang Downs to warn them about the grassfires,” Thorne said. “I told you that.”

“No, not that part,” Walker said. “The part where you like blokes.”

“That happened when I was a kid,” Thorne said. “I just didn’t tell anybody about it.”

“And in all that time and with everything we’ve been through, you couldn’t have told me before this?”

“There was never a reason to tell you,” Thorne said. “I hadn’t met anyone, I didn’t know if I ever would, and you know how it is with secrets. As soon as you tell anyone, it’s not a secret anymore.”

“Like I’d do anything to put you in danger! You saved my fucking life, remember?”

“Is everything okay?” Ian asked as he rejoined them at the table.

“Stupid fucker kept secrets from me for nineteen years,” Walker spat. “No, everything is not okay.”

Thorne could have punched Walker right then for the look the comment put on Ian’s face. “Don’t take it out on him,” Thorne said. “If you’re angry at someone, be angry at me.”

“Damn straight I’m angry at you.” He turned to Ian. “You work on a team on the station. You know how it is. You have to trust the men you’re out in the paddocks with to do their job and to have your six. Now I find out he lied to me all these years. What am I supposed to think?”

“That he did his job and had your back all those years,” Ian replied quietly. “I don’t know how it is in the army, but I know how it is in the outback, and telling the wrong person you’re bent is a good way to have nobody watching your back ever again unless it’s to take a stab at it. If it makes you feel any better, my best friend’s brother and both of our bosses are gay, but I didn’t say anything to any of them until a couple of weeks ago. I’d kept the secret for so long I didn’t say anything until I didn’t have a choice anymore.”

Walker didn’t look convinced by Ian’s passionate defense, but the heartfelt words warmed Thorne. He squeezed Ian’s knee beneath the table.

“Look, I didn’t tell you to cause problems or to make you uncomfortable,” Thorne said. “You’re the closest thing to family I have left, and I wanted Ian to meet you, but I can see that’s a bad idea now, so we’ll just get my boxes from your place and get out of your hair. If you reach a point where you’re comfortable with us, you know how to reach me, but I won’t bother you again.”

“Sit down,” Walker snapped as Thorne started to stand “I’m angry as fuck, but you’re not getting out of it that easily. You’re stuck with me, remember?”

“I never wanted it any other way,” Thorne said, “but I’m not going to listen to homophobic bullshit.”

“You think that’s what this is about?” Walker retorted. “I don’t give a shit who you fuck. I’m pissed because you didn’t tell me the truth. I went out with you. I watched you pick up girls. Hell, we shared those twins in Saigon. That’s not omission, like your boyfriend said. That’s an outright lie.”

“A necessary one,” Thorne insisted. “You weren’t the only one watching all those nights. Maybe you wouldn’t have cared, but you
know
we served with men who would have, and stories like the twins in Saigon made sure I was safe from the rest of them.”

“Any other secrets you’re keeping from me?” Walker demanded.

“No,” Thorne promised, “this was the only one. I mean, there’s stuff we haven’t talked about since I’ve been out, stories we haven’t had time for me to tell you, but nothing secret.”

“That’s something, anyway,” Walker grumbled. He turned to Ian. “Sorry about the outburst. It’s not about you. You get that, right?”

Ian didn’t look convinced, as far as Thorne was concerned, but he nodded and gave Walker a halfhearted smile.

“So tell me about East Timor? Are things getting any better?” Thorne asked, hoping to change the subject.

They spent the rest of dinner trading stories of shared and separate missions, reminiscing and remembering lost friends. Thorne worried Ian would feel excluded, but he hoped it would give him some insight into Thorne’s past. He didn’t feel comfortable trying to recount his service in any kind of coherent fashion, but this rambling walk down memory lane served the same purpose in a far less studied fashion. Ian laughed at the funny stories—and Walker made sure to drag out every story that made Thorne look like a Galah—and squeezed Thorne’s hand beneath the table when the conversation turned to lost friends and dark missions. By the time they left the pub to return to Walker’s apartment, the tension between Thorne and Walker had dissipated, leaving them laughing like they always did when they were together for any period of time.

“You want another beer?” Walker asked when they got back to his apartment. “Tomorrow is my day off, so I don’t have to get up early.”

“You don’t, but we do,” Thorne reminded him. “We have to drive back several hours past Boorowa tomorrow instead of lazing around in bed all day. We can’t afford to be hungover.”

“Has your tolerance really dropped that much in a few months?” Walker teased. “You used to be able to drink me under the table without even trying.”

He could probably still fake it, like he had all those years in the military, but Thorne had told Walker no more secrets. “That’s because I was really good at making it seem like I drank more than I actually did. Most of those nights I drank you under the table, I’d only actually had one drink. Everyone just thought I’d had more.”

“More secrets?” Walker asked, but he didn’t seem as upset as he had earlier, so Thorne just shrugged.

“Sleight of hand. My best friend in high school was the son of an alcoholic, often an angry one. We swore we’d never be like him,” Thorne explained.

“You can drink without getting drunk,” Walker said.

“And he can choose not to drink if that’s his preference,” Ian interrupted. “If you want us to stay longer, we can, but we can have coffee, or water, for that matter. We don’t need to keep drinking to have a good time.”

“Kitchen’s in there,” Walker said to Thorne. “If you want something, help yourself. I want a word with your boyfriend.”

Thorne tensed, but Ian waved him toward the kitchen, so Thorne went to put on a pot of coffee. He’d been here enough times when they were still serving together to know where everything was.

I
AN
tensed when Thorne left the room. He didn’t think Walker meant him any harm, and even if he did, Thorne was a shout away, but it didn’t make the moment any less nerve-racking.

“I’ve known Lachlan for a long time,” Walker said.

“I got that impression,” Ian said wryly.

Walker grinned, although the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “Smartarse. I like you already. In all that time, I’ve never seen him happy. Satisfied with a mission well done, relieved to be alive, replete after a night of fucking, even excited about the prospect of leave—and doesn’t that make more sense now—but I’ve never seen him happy. Too much shit in his past for that. Has he told you about his parents?”

“Only a little,” Ian said. “I know they’re deceased.”

“That’s not my story to tell, but ask him about them at some point. You’ll see what I’m talking about with the whole happiness bit. You, however, make him happy. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, to be perfectly honest, but he’s my brother-in-arms, and nothing changes that.”

“That’s good to know,” Ian said, relaxing a bit. “I want him to be happy.”

“So do I,” Walker said. “I grew up on a sheep station, you know. Not in NSW, but enough to know what it’s like and the kind of prejudices he could be facing.”

“Not on Lang Downs,” Ian said immediately. “Not with Caine and Macklin owning the place and Neil running it. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but I watched Neil fire a man last summer because he wouldn’t let up on the comments about the bosses. If he’d kept his mouth shut after the first time, or probably even after the fifth, Neil might have let it go, but he’s loyal to the bone, and he won’t stand for any kind of ignorant comments about the bosses or any of the other couples on the station. The same will apply to Thorne and me. Not that Thorne can’t look after himself; I’m pretty sure whatever he’d choose to do in his own defense would be far worse than losing a job.”

“He could, but he won’t,” Walker said, “not unless he’s attacked physically, or maybe if you are. He’s trained enough to kill in his sleep, but he’s disciplined enough to keep all that under wraps unless there’s a bloody good reason to let it out.”

Ian thought about the moment in the paddocks with Laura and the times since then when he’d seen Thorne come close to reaching his breaking point. He wondered how aware Walker was of Thorne’s current condition, but before he could ask for clarification or advice, Thorne came back in with two cups of coffee—one black, one light and sweet, just the way Ian liked it—and a beer for Walker.

“Everything okay in here?” he asked as he set the drinks on the low table in front of the couch.

“Everything’s fine,” Ian said, realizing as he spoke that he actually meant it. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“I know how you get,” Thorne said with a grin, and Ian couldn’t help his answering smile. Thorne
did
know him after a month spent together working and living on the station. Judging from Walker’s expression, that was another sign of something different—something good, Ian hoped. He took a sip of the coffee and swallowed hard as an epiphany struck him with all the subtlety of a stampede: he’d fallen in love with the burly wounded warrior sitting next to him on the couch.

Thorne and Walker kept the conversation going, thankfully, because Ian was too shell-shocked to do anything but sit there and stare blindly at the wall of Walker’s apartment. He couldn’t be in love with Thorne. Thorne didn’t deserve someone who couldn’t even contemplate taking his shirt off in the same room with another man. He deserved someone who could love him without reservation, but the thought of what that might entail still left Ian feeling sick to his stomach. His hands trembled as he sipped his coffee, nearly sloshing the hot liquid over the rim of the cup. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, but the shaking got worse, and he had to put the cup down before he spilled it all over himself and the couch.

“Ian?” Thorne asked when the cup clattered against the table. “What’s wrong?”

Ian shook his head and tried not to hyperventilate.

“Ian, you’re scaring me.”

“Can it, Lachlan,” Walker snapped. “You’ve been around enough blokes straight out of the field. You should recognize a flashback when you see one.”

Ian wanted to deny it, to insist he was perfectly fine, but he couldn’t form the words. A moment later, he felt Thorne wrap a thick blanket around his shoulders. It should have been stifling in the mid-December heat, but Ian felt frozen all the way through, even with the blanket encasing him. He didn’t protest when Thorne pulled him onto his lap and added his own body heat to the mix. The circle of Thorne’s arms did more to steady him than anything else. He was safe with Thorne, safe in his arms, safe with those big hands covering his back and shutting out everything that might come to hurt him. All he had to do was relax and trust them and he’d stop shaking. He’d be able to breathe right again. He’d be able to smile and assure them it wasn’t anything serious, just a bad memory. They might even let it go at that. They had moments they didn’t want to relive. Surely they’d understand Ian just wanting to put this behind him.

In the seventeen years since he’d escaped, he still hadn’t put it behind him.

Bile rose in his throat. He buried his face against Thorne’s neck, letting the smell of cedar and granite remind him where he was. His foster father had always smelled like cheap pomade and often of whiskey, never like this, and he’d never worn a beard, so the familiar rasp of Thorne’s facial hair against Ian’s forehead was another layer of reality separating him from the past. He had to get himself under control or they’d ask for explanations he couldn’t give. He couldn’t admit to what had happened. Shame roiled through him, choking him with its intensity.

He had to get out of here. He had to get somewhere safe.

“—safe. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Thorne’s words finally penetrated the panicked haze of Ian’s mind.

“Look, Walker is standing guard at the door, and I’ve got you in my arms. Nobody’s getting anywhere near you. You’re safe.”

Ian wanted to tell them he’d never be safe again, but he forced himself to picture his foster father realistically. Compared with a sixteen-year-old boy, he’d been large and intimidating, but Ian wasn’t sixteen anymore, and the men in the room with him towered over him. They were close to the same age his foster father had been then, which meant they were fifteen or more years older than him, powerful, highly trained soldiers in the prime of their lives. Even if somehow his foster father found him again and tried to take him, he’d stand no chance against either of them, much less against both of them. He was safe.